Sunday, 16 May 2010

Day 125: Exposure

This is "Exposure", a new sculpture by Antony Gormley - the man behind many cool sculptures such as the "Angel of the North" and "Another Place". Affectionately known as Antony Gormley's Doofer (because we kept going to see it and marvelling at it and completely failing to remember what it was called!), we have been watching it grow over the past few months, getting more and more excited about how huge it is and what a fantastic feat of engineering it is. The sculpture is of a crouching man and is being assembled near my Granny's house (giving us the perfect excuse to go and see it every week) by a company called Had Fab who normally build things like pylons - you can see why they would be a good choice for a project like this! I think we're very lucky to have spotted it because this was a test assembly and it will be going to Holland very soon. Apparently it is flood lit at night so I think it would be interesting to go back and see it at about sunset/twilight as another potentially interesting photo.

Meanwhile, there are a few more photos below to show you some detail and scale. I went with the far away shot above because it is so striking and gives you an idea of how enormous he is (25 metres tall) and it gives an overall idea of the pose he is in - you can see his shins, his bum curving out to the side and his arms curving round to hug his knees. It wasn't the best day to photograph him but when I took them I was just so excited he looked complete and we weren't sure how long he would stay complete. I have heard tell of an open day though, so with any luck we'll be able to go along and get up close to him! :-D

When you look at the close ups (you can click on them to see a larger version) you can see all the individual beams and the nodes where they all join together. I read that he is made up of 14,000 bolts, 5,000 pieces and 548 joining nodes which are incredible because in places they are joining together so many pieces - like in his head and his chest, giving the image of a brain and a heart. It's not your average 4 way joint! And I will always be amazed by the detail you can achieve with simple lines. Looking at him side on his head is so simple and yet the use of slight angles mean you can see exactly where his eyes, nose and mouth are. I saw a clip of a TV show that had an interview with Antony and he said that this just wouldn't have been possible even 10 years ago because the design software alone wouldn't have been able to cope. I find it incredible that they managed and that he is standing on just his 2 feet (bolted down, admittedly) with no fear of him toppling or contorting because of wind or the weight of his own body. And from all this excited rambling you can probably tell I am very much enamoured with "Exposure" and I will miss him when he goes to Holland. I very much hope I will get the chance to visit him someday, as well as "Another Place" and the chance to stand at the feet of the "Angel of the North" instead of just seeing her from a distance on the motorway.

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Mosaic

I think it gives it all a very different look and it is fun to see the change in seasons through the colour and content of the photos. Also highlights some that may be otherwise overlooked. Refresh it and it all changes, shifting focus to something new...